Paris was going to be Sony Ericsson’s first slider in the P-series line-up. While it was partly based on old hardware, Sony Ericsson had made several software enhancements that would significantly speed up the phone. In addition to this, the Paris would have been based on UIQ 3.3. Anyway, what I wanted to show in this blog post was that Sony Ericsson realized that the business segment no longer has to be connected to boring colour schemes. It can be black and grey while still looking like a million bucks! I’ve known about the three colour variants for Paris (black/blue, silver/red, and black/orange) in about two months now, and this was one of the things that I liked about it - they’re trying to break the habit of “one colour variant” business & enterprise phones. Let’s hope they’ll keep it up in upcoming S60-based business phones.

Beibei was the mainstream UIQ 3.3-based smart phone that was never announced either. Beibei would - in my opinion - have been the better of the two. It brought along lots of innovation and new-thinking, one being the way you’d control the device with the scroll wheel. Just like Paris, Beibei would have shown up in three colour variants; black, black/blue and the white/red one. I’m hoping to get my hands on one, and I’ll be sure to tell you all about it if I succeed!

We’ve got a nice little feature in the footer here at the blog that shows the current theme version. It has been saying v2.55 for quite some time now, but not anymore! From now on it should said v3.00(b), as I’ve just activated our updated and greatly improved theme. It is still not a finished version, and I am hoping you’ll report any bugs or missing features. I promise I’ll keep updating the theme!

Features / changes
- New colour scheme
- Improved menu layout
- 8.5x lighter source code
- Over 35 % faster loading speeds
- Lots of code cleanup / improvements
- Valid CSS 3, RSS 2.0 & xHTML 1.0 Transitional
- Fully tested with Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 7, Opera 9.5 & Safari 3.1

I’m also looking into setting up a mobile version of the blog that’ll be even lighter on the data transfers for all our mobile phone users.

Please do tell me what you think, and I hope you’ll enjoy it!

Sony Ericsson’s Developer World website has just been revamped with an entirely new look. The site now focuses a lot more on the latest news, latest tools and documents, latest forum threads, etc. You can even rate the articles and pages now, although I’m not quite sure it’ll do any good on a developer website. Anyway, the option is there for you to use!

The phone database has been updated quite a lot as well. You can now perform searches based on features, such as by software platform, screen resolution or various developer capabilities. It’s all very neat, and works a charm.

The update goes for both the English and the Chinese site, so do check them out!

[thanks Xell for the heads-up]

MBS-200 is a rather stylish metal Bluetooth (A2DP standard) speaker set to replace Sony Ericsson’s current snowball-like speaker, the MBS-100. As something new, the MBS-200 features an OLED display for displaying the song information. It also comes with a 3.5 mm jack input so it can be used for your computer or alike.

The MBS-400 is basically the same as the MBS-200 with the addition of yet another speaker unit. These two are connected by a wire, and can act as a stereo Bluetooth speaker that way.

The MPS-100 is the latest in the series of Portable Speakers from Sony Ericsson. It’s a set of small speakers that can be attached to each other when you’re going somewhere. The MPS-100 also feature a 3.5 mm jack input.

The HPM-66 is the cheapest headset announced. It is designed for the active ones among us (hrm, hrm…). The copper cord is oxygen-free - I’m not sure if this is necessarily a good or bad thing, though, as it would seem to lower the cord’s resistance, and the earplugs are apparently neodymium magnet units, which seems rather nice.. Apart from that, we’re looking at a standard headset from Sony Ericsson - 3.5 mm jack, FastPort connector, and stereo sound in two earplugs.

HPM-88 is the other wired headset. In features everything mentioned above with the addition of noise cancelling, and is thereby one of Sony Ericsson’s first so-called NC headsets. Another thing to note is the design of the earbuds - they’re designed to sit secure and comfortably in the ears.

The last headset is the HBH-IS800, and is without doubt the most interesting one of the pack. It is Sony Ericsson’s smallest stereo Bluetooth headset, and it even features noise cancelling. It is extremely elegant to use, and the design seems very minimalistic, yet stylish. I can’t wait to try out this one!

The last accessory announced was the IPC-40, a Walkman phone case. It is designed to work well with the various headphone accessories, and can keep the wires out of the way, when not used. Pretty cool!

All the accessories will be available in Q4 this year.

Along with the W595 and W902, also announced the Sony Ericsson W302. It’s a low-end Walkman phone, yet it packs a decent featureset for its class. It is a quad-band GSM phone with GPRS/EDGE support.

The W302 is very much similar to the S302. This means it features a 2 mega pixel camera (fixed focus), a 2 inch 176 x 220 pixel TFT display (up to 262.144 colours), FM radio, TrackID, 3D Java gaming, PictBridge, blogging, and more.

W302 measures 100 x 46 x 10.5 millimetres, and not only the size but also the design will get you to think of the very popular W880.

- To deliver Walkman phones that target all segments of the market has always been our aim since the successful launch of our first - the W800, said Ben Padley, Head of the Music Category at Sony Ericsson, and continued:
- It has always been our vision to deliver music on the go to the masses, by developing a range that caters to a wide variety of requirements, tastes and price-points. Our new W302 phone is our most affordable Walkman phone to date, without compromising on the premium feel and stylish design that customers expect of Sony Ericsson. The W302 is also a perfect match for the new portable MPS-100 speakers, launched today, which are small and compact enough to fit in your pocket.

It comes with a 512 MB memory card in the sales package. Sony Ericsson expects to launch the W302 in Q4. It will be launched in two colour variants; Midnight Black and Sparkling White.

Sony Ericsson today announced the rumoured W902 - a Walkman branded C902 with a bundled 8 gigabyte memory card to take your music library with you everywhere - as well as the W595, the W580’s successor.

Both the W595 and W902 are quad-band GSM phones with UMTS/HSDPA 2100 network support. Both phones feature the Walkman 3 player, and both are based on the A2 software platform.

The W595 features a 3.2 mega pixel camera (fixed focus), stereo speakers, ShakeControl with the built-in accelerometer, Bluetooth, TrackID, and more. It also comes bundled with a 2 gigabyte memory card. The W595’s display is similar to the one on W902 - a 2.2 inch QVGA-resolution TFT display, capable of showing up to 262.144 colours.

The hot thing today will not be the W595, though, as Sony Ericsson also announced the W902, the new Walkman flagship feature phone. This phone combines the 5 mega pixel auto focus camera in C902 with 8 gigabytes of memory and all the latest music features. As said, the display is a 2.2 inch TFT display at QVGA resolution. It is, however, made of mineral glass to keep scratches away, and so is the camera lens. W902 also features Shake Control, an accelerometer, Bluetooth, TrackID, FM radio, Google Maps, geo-tagging (without GPS, though), and much more.

- We all want more from our mobile phones than ever before, said Ben Padley, Head of the Music Category at Sony Ericsson, and continued:
- If you love music but don’t want to compromise on imaging and video, we have used our expertise as music phone specialists to give users a truly multimedia experience with this latest phone. The W902 is one of our most high-performing phones yet and perfect for those who want it all.

The HPM-77 comes bundled with the W902, and Sony Ericsson promises the W902 will feature an excellent sound quality, like the W980, that has yet to be launched.

Both phones will be available in Q4 this year. W595 will be launched in four colour variants (Active Blue, Cosmopolitan White, Jungle Grey & Lava Black), while W902 will be launched in three colour variants (Volcanic Black, Wine Red & Earth Green).

Maximys also added that the services will soon be launched in Sweden and the United Kingdom, while the rest of us will have to wait a bit longer. I’m sure I’ll get round to do a review of the service once it launches, though.

Here’s an internal test view at the PlayNow Arena service for computers, also dubbed the Web service.

And here are a few screenshots of the handheld services for mobile phones, dubbed the WAP service.

Source: SEMC Blog

If nothing happens, Sony Ericsson's headquarters will soon be invaded by angry Sony Ericsson fans

Sony Ericsson today announced its Q2 financial results. During the second quarter of 2008 Sony Ericsson achieved break-even results, and once again declared that the market is “proving challenging”. This has to be the third time they’ve come up with those ground-breaking statements. I’m guessing that’s what their “contuined R&D investments” have been used it, as it most certainly wasn’t used for researching and developing anything phone related.
Another ‘highlight’ in Sony Ericsson’s press release about the Q2 financial results is the announcement of Symbian Foundation. To me it seems like this was only added because there was nothing just slightly exciting left for the PR crew to add.

So, let’s get to the results. They’re bad - really bad.

• During the second quarter of the year, Sony Ericsson just managed to ship a total of 24.4 million units; that’s lower than the total amount of shipped units in Q2 2007. YoY change: -2.05 %
• The sales brought in a total of 2,820 million Euro. Once again, significantly lower than last year’s sales. YoY change: -10.35 %
• The gross margin fell from 29.2 % in Q1 to 23.1 % in Q2. YoY change: -28.14 %
• The operating income has turned negative, and is now at -2 million Euro. YoY change: - 100.63 %
• The netto income is now down to 6 Million Euro. YoY change: -97.28 %

Isn’t that just pathetic? Sony Ericsson yet again blames the market for being challenging - did I say that before (?) - and once again don’t think the mid/high-end markets are the ones to go for. Once again, my guess is that they are looking at their own facts and numbers, and found out their mid/high-end devices are simply not popular. I wonder why…

I guess faithful Sony Ericsson owners can start getting acquainted to getting larger and larger amounts of low-end phones.

- We are aligning our operations and resources worldwide to meet an increasingly competitive business environment and to help restore our capability for profitable growth. The measures we are taking are aimed at becoming a faster, more agile and more cost efficient organisation that can continue to create innovative products that excite consumers, says Hideki Komiyama, Sony Ericsson’s President in the press release.

- Our target is to achieve a reduction in operating expenses of Euro 300 million annually, with the full effect expected to appear within a year. We estimate that our restructuring charges will be of the same magnitude as our reduction in operating expenses, and we will incur such charges as our measures are implemented, he continues.

What he fails to mention is that this will mean up to 2,000 Sony Ericsson employees will get sacked. Such a pity.

I sincerely hope this is the kick in the behind Sony Ericsson needs to rise again. If not, then I don’t have any plans of staying with this company.

You can read the full joke over here.

Sony Ericsson today officially confirmed the rumours - July 22 is the date of the next product announcement. According to our information, a total of three handsets will be announced - W302, W585/W595 & W902. Alicia (W707) is a cancelled project.

Once again we’ve got the stuff about the phones, but we’ll keep it to ourselves for now. Sony Ericsson didn’t like our recent leaks, especially not the C905 one, so we’ll play good this time

You can check out Sony Ericsson’s minisite for the upcoming announcement here.

Eldar is a man who once loved Sony Ericsson. With the latest models, this love is gone and it hurts him. It seems like the line-up for the announcement at July 22nd is nothing to bring back the love again. Read his impressions about the three phones in the following articles:

Sony Ericsson W902
Sony Ericsson W595
Sony Ericsson W302

We told you about the T610 remake almost two weeks ago, and now more photos of this phone, still only known by its codename (Remi), have been leaked. Remi is a candybar phone, probably for the T-series range of phones. It features a mediocre 3.2 mega pixel camera without auto focus, though with a flash LED, as well as HSDPA for speedy Internet connections. It’s basically a generic version of W890. Remi is not going to be announced on July 22.

Let’s start off with Feng…

And now Remi…

All the photos come from SE4M, so great thanks to this wonderful website, as well as to Pop lover for posting them.

[Thanks phoner!]

Also leaked earlier on was the W595. While I was on a short vacation, additional pictures have surfaced the web of this one - some of Esato and some on Myphone.gr. They don’t really show much, and the ones from Myphone.gr are just as blurry as the first leaks, so I didn’t include either. I’m sure you’ll be able to find them, if you’re good with Google. If not, let me know.

I’ve included the many photos of W902 just below. Both this one and W595 will be announced on July 22nd at a Walkman / music gig. I think another phone will be announced here as well - not the T610 remake, though, this is for a later announcement this year.

Spice Mobile has a market capitalisation of round Rs 177 crore with its shares closing at Rs 22.7 on Thursday on the Bombay Stock Exchange. However, Modi is looking for Rs 80 - 100 per share, which values Spice Mobile at around Rs 700 crore. Modi had last month exited his other telecom entity, Spice Telecom, a carrier operational in two circles of Punjab and Karnataka.

Read

In partnership with CellPassion.com.

By the way… I’ll be taking a small vacation, and won’t be back till Thursday.

[thanks, Phoner]